Sports only have meaning because a certain group of humans ascribes meaning to those activities. Think about the passion demonstrated by groups of adults on Saturday fall afternoons sitting in front of television sets. From listening to the screams of ecstasy and wails of despair you might think the survival of earth was at stake, instead of whether some other human carried a ball across some line drawn on some field.

In horse sports, it seems to me, that the FIRST question to ask is whether or not it does harm to the horses.

The horse has zero interest in the hopes and dreams of humans. The horse doesn’t wake up on Saturday morning thinking, “I sure hope I can make my little owner proud of me today.”

On Saturday morning, just like on every other morning, the horse hopes to get something to eat.

This is a quote from Denny Emerson’s Tamarack Hill Facebook page. For more from Denny, I recommend his latest book, Begin and Begin Again - The Bright Optimism of Reinventing Life with Horses.

Here's a link to Lynn Acton's book, What Horses Really Want.

This is a link to Descript, my recommended audio and video editing software.

And a link to the Second Half Horsemanship website.